• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

New graphics card or not?

Blueboottle

Blueboottle

Blueboottle

Associate
Joined
8 Jan 2011
Posts
48
Hi, I am running the following system and was thinking of changing the graphics card.

Windows Vista Home Basic (x64) Service Pack 2
2.53 gigahertz Intel Core2 Quad Q6600
Board: ASUS P5N-E SLI 1
Bus Clock: 280 megahertz
8190 Megabytes RAM
Asus NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260
850watt PSU

I had thought of getting another GTX 260 and running in SLI, but realised I don't have another two power connectors. So I thought perhaps of replacing the current card with something like a GTX 480. However, I understand that my CPU may cause a bottleneck with a faster card. So would it still be worth upgrading to get a DirectX 11 card or not?

Cheers.
 
You could try overlocking that q6600 to 3.0GHz+.

Have you got some molex connectors available on your PSU as they could connect to a molex to 6 pin PCIE connector for another GTX260??

:D
 
I think there are a couple of spare molex connectors. The current card uses one for the second input too.
I have thought of overclocking the cpu more, but am a novice and a bit scared of doing it.
 
Ah, a £27 850W PSU.

I would strongly suggest you invest in a new PSU before you spend any money on a new graphics card.

This is a very nice PSU and will happily handle two GTX 260s in SLI or any single current-gen graphics card.
 
cmndr_andi said:
Ah, a £27 850W PSU.

I would strongly suggest you invest in a new PSU before you spend any money on a new graphics card.

This is a very nice PSU and will happily handle two GTX 260s in SLI or any single current-gen graphics card.
Click to expand...

Thought I might need to.

As to a 560, any ideas what kind of price it's going to be?

And what does +1 mean?
 
It means that someone agrees with the other poster's comment.

I'll also give a +1 to the original advice, psu - the most important part you'll buy. :)
 
arc@css said:
It means that someone agrees with the other poster's comment.

I'll also give a +1 to the original advice, psu - the most important part you'll buy. :)
Click to expand...

Thanks folks. :)

Guess I'll do that then. new psu first. Won't have enough for the 560 after I've bought that. Will probably go with a new card instead of SLI as the Asus gtx 260 vents into the case and although I have plenty of room and pretty good airflow, I think I would rather just have the one card in (plus get the benefits of DX11).

One last question. I will have about £200 left after getting the psu, so which card would you recommend?
 
1. Press delete upon booting the system and when in bios change the FSB to 333, that'll change your cpu to 3.0ghz. Monitor temps with software like coretemp, which you can download for nothing.

2. Re : video card, (do see what others say here) but depending on what overclock you can reach I'd look at stretching your budget and aiming for a 6950. I expect your cpu will able to reach 3ghz but I'm not sure if it would bottleneck the new card significantly. The 6950 is the current best bang for buck.

Btw, what resolution do you game at?
 
Normally running at 1490 X 900, though sometimes higher if I use my HD TV.
Had looked at some of the GTX 470s as they have dropped in price to about what I can afford, but if the Ati is better, might stretch to that.
 
Well, at your res I 'might' consider something slightly different, the 2 gb of vram on the card will be overkill, even with some of the most demanding mods and AA. Like I say, see what others suggest but in the mean time these spring to mind :

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-238-AS&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1830

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-242-AS&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1830

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-103-MS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=411
 
arc@css said:
Well, at your res I 'might' consider something slightly different, the 2 gb of vram on the card will be overkill, even with some of the most demanding mods and AA. Like I say, see what others suggest but in the mean time these spring to mind :

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-238-AS&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1830

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-242-AS&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1830

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-103-MS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=411
Click to expand...

Okay. If I wanted to run these in SLI, what size psu would I need?
 
at that res you wont need SLI.

put the money towards a decent monitor.

when i was building my old E8400 rig i had a rubbish £20 PSU and a 7900GT + 19" 1440x900 monitor.

In this order i upgraded.

PSU - Corsair 650w - Still being used in my i7 rig now
Monitor - BenQ G2410HD
GPU - ATI 4870.

and i only upgraded the GPU once i knew my old 7900 couldn't cut the 1920x1080 res.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom